


Headcanon about Phryne

by foxspirit1928



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 09:50:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13587549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxspirit1928/pseuds/foxspirit1928
Summary: 221aubrina planted a bug in my ear a few days ago, urging me to consider putting my “in depth analyzers, character musings, etc. on AO3”.Although I am not a fic writer (and not much a reader at the moment), I could still contribute by posting my random thoughts. If they happen to trigger ideas in others and evolve into a complete story, it would be an honor and would make me very happy. Besides, I have written many posts over the years, so I won’t need to come up with new ones (at least not for a while); I just need to dig them up and reformat them a bit for this platform, which shouldn’t be too time consuming. (Right?)So here I am, doing what the Chinese call “frying cold rice” (using leftovers to make a new dish). The first one is a blast from the (far, far) past: Miss Fisher Fandom 30 Day Challenge, Day 4 Headcanon about Phryne, originally posted on Tumblr exactly 3 years ago on 05-Feb-2015. I had not started reading the Kerry Greenwood books at that time, so everything I wrote was my own imagination based on the show (S1 & S2) and some of the fics I read at the time. As you can see, I am more of a historian or reporter who organizes and narrates the facts I collected, definitely not a creative fic writer!





	Headcanon about Phryne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [221A_brina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/221A_brina/gifts).



> 221aubrina planted a bug in my ear a few days ago, urging me to consider putting my “in depth analyzers, character musings, etc. on AO3”. 
> 
> Although I am not a fic writer (and not much a reader at the moment), I could still contribute by posting my random thoughts. If they happen to trigger ideas in others and evolve into a complete story, it would be an honor and would make me very happy. Besides, I have written many posts over the years, so I won’t need to come up with new ones (at least not for a while); I just need to dig them up and reformat them a bit for this platform, which shouldn’t be too time consuming. (Right?)
> 
> So here I am, doing what the Chinese call “frying cold rice” (using leftovers to make a new dish). The first one is a blast from the (far, far) past: Miss Fisher Fandom 30 Day Challenge, Day 4 Headcanon about Phryne, originally posted on Tumblr exactly 3 years ago on 05-Feb-2015. I had not started reading the Kerry Greenwood books at that time, so everything I wrote was my own imagination based on the show (S1 & S2) and some of the fics I read at the time. As you can see, I am more of a historian or reporter who organizes and narrates the facts I collected, definitely not a creative fic writer!

I could never sort out the timeline between Jayne’s disappearance and Phryne’s return to Melbourne as a grown woman in Cocaine Blues, so here is my attempt to paint a picture of what happened during that time.

After Jayne’s disappearance, the family was distraught. Phryne’s father sank more deeply into his alcohol addiction, and her mother became depressed and withdrawn. Neither of them offered much comfort or support to the then 12-year-old Phryne, who was ridden with guilt and grief of losing her little sister. Phryne’s father had some relatives living in England, so he decided to move the family there to be far away from the place that was filled with sadness.

Upon arriving England, Phryne was surprised to learn that her father’s relatives were quite well-off. Her father was once a young man full of adventurous spirit, and his romantic notion of the British colony drove him to sail for Australia against his family’s wish. After he failed to strike gold in the foreign land, he was too proud to turn to his family for help, so they eventually lost contact with each other. Fortunately, they welcomed the Fisher family back with warm hearts and open arms. Phryne’s father found work in one of the family businesses, and Phryne was sent to boarding school where she continued to receive formal education (Mrs. Charlesworth would be delighted to know that her fight against Phryne’s father earlier to send her to school was not wasted). 

Like Jane, Phryne was curious and intellectual; she loved the library but couldn’t stand the silly girls and their catty attacks at those from less prestigious background. Being the poor cousin from a colony and having to rely on relative’s financial support, Phryne was one of their targets (her later beratement of Oliver in Juana the Mad, S2E8, must have stemmed from her suffering during this period). When the war broke out, she begged her father to let her join the ambulance unit, but he refused to grant his permission, insisting on her finishing her education.

When she turned 17, she decided that she was old enough to be on her own. She ran away from home, left school behind, and join the voluntary ambulance unit, where she met Mac and became fast friends. Their unit was sent to France a few months before the war ended. During that time, she actually met Jack for the first time as she was nursing one of his badly wounded fellow servicemen, but the brief encounter didn’t leave any impression on either of them.

After the war, she stayed in France, posing for Sarcelle, and met Dubois. She eventually ran away from the abusive relationship and went back to England. Mac was her confidante during this dark period and helped arrange her trip home. Upon her return, she learned that her father had inherited the title and family fortune as all other eligible family members had disappeared or died during the war. All of a sudden, she became the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher with fancy clothes and endless party invitations. Determined to put the memories of war and abusive relationship behind her, Phryne partied hard and enjoyed numerous dalliances. She vowed not to take anything seriously and not to commit to any man so that she would always remain in control of her own fate and never get hurt again. 

Being her father’s daughter, Phryne had the same adventurous spirit in her blood. She grew restless after a couple of years, so she started traveling the world; Italy (where she met an opera singer), Portugal (where she met a sailor who taught her how to tie knots among other things), Spain (where she met Carlos the dancer), France (where she saw Sasha and his sister dance), Africa (where she climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, at least to the first hiker’s hut), America (where she made some friends in Hollywood), etc. After a few years of traveling, she returned to England and dabbled in theatre. She met Bart, a fellow Melbournian, and performed a few plays on stage with him. She also returned to Melbourne a couple of times to visit her good friend Mac, who moved there after the war and became a resident physician at a woman’s hospital, and to attend the trial when Janey’s abductor Foyle was arrested.

Watching Foyle being put behind bars for kidnapping Myrtle Hill while never admitting to taking Jayne infuriated Phryne. She promised her parents that someday she would unearth the truth and bring Foyle to justice. She started a training program for herself, reading books about crimes and justice system (e.g. “Inside the Criminal Mind”), learning how to drive, pick locks and open the safe, taking lessons in shooting pistols and flying daggers, receiving trainings on self-defense and some martial arts (like Judo), and developing techniques in observing and examining evidence (like wearing gloves at the crime scene and be careful not to trample over it). She read the Sherlock Holmes novels like textbooks, finding the Science of Deduction most helpful when coupled with her keen woman’s intuition. 

It might have started as a mission, but it quickly turned into a passion for Phryne. After helping a few family friends solve some cases (mainly jewelry theft), she became more confident in her detective skills and discovered that she actually quite enjoyed the investigation process and the satisfaction of bringing criminals (however minor they might be) to justice. Armed with her new-found skills and confidence along with her title, fortune, and fabulous wardrobe, she decided to move back to Melbourne in 1928 when she heard that Foyle’s prison sentence was nearly up. She was ready to execute her plan of making him confess to what he did to Jayne, keeping him behind bars, and ensuring that he eventually got hanged for the crime he committed.

And the rest is history.


End file.
